Shake-up possible for Chiefs in '07

Shake-up possible for Chiefs in ’07
Status of Gonzalez and Green among the issues that have to be decided.
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
His stuff packed away, his locker nearly clean and his goodbyes mostly said, Tony Gonzalez put on a black coat and gray stocking cap and walked out of Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday morning.

The locker room he left behind was a mix of smiles and jokes and hugs. The sting of Saturday’s dismal 23-8 playoff loss in Indianapolis seemed mostly behind the Chiefs, or at least pushed beneath the surface for now.

Gonzalez will start his superstar travel schedule shortly. He’ll chill in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. But at the moment, a shade past 10:30 in the morning, Gonzalez sounded like a man who sees the end approaching.

“It’s been 10 years now, for me, leaving here disappointed,” he said. “I’ll never get used to it, and I never want to. But after 10 years, you start to say to yourself, ‘This is something that’s got to change.’

“That’s what they pay us for, to win games, to go to the Super Bowl. If we can’t get it done, something’s got to change. I’m looking forward to change this offseason.”

There’s been so much change already in the last year, from Dick Vermeil’s tears to Herm Edwards’ sermons, from a score-’em-if-you-got-’em offense to a conservative approach that would make Fox News blush.

Through it all, Gonzalez caught 73 passes for 900 yards and five touchdowns, good for another Pro Bowl season — his eighth in 10 NFL seasons.

They’ve all been with the Chiefs, and that may be coming to an end. Gonzalez is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent — though the Chiefs may give him the franchise tag and retain him — and could be open to playing somewhere else.

“That’s a definite possibility,” he said.

A probability?

“It’s a possibility,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t know at this point. I couldn’t tell you any which way, am I coming back or going out there as a free agent. I hope they don’t franchise me, and that means free-agency. If that comes, I’m gonna go out there and look around.”

Across the way, Green, the franchise quarterback and one of the guys sure to come back, sat in front of his locker, waiting for a day of rehab. There is no rest for the weary, and Green plans on spending much of the offseason building his body back to where it was before his injury.

What the team looks like when he returns is a whole different issue.

“Oh, there will be (change),” he said. “It’s not a matter if I want it. There will be. Every year, there’s about 10 to 15 new players, and this year there may be more than that, if you just base it on what coach Edwards has said, and who’s going to be a free agent.”

Johnson bolted from Arrowhead before the locker room was open to reporters, a Yankees hat covering the Roc-A-Fella logo cut into his hair. Johnson and the Chiefs have begun talks on a new contract, giving the team at least some stability as it enters this offseason.

Besides the unknown with several key players, the constant in the locker room was another season of disappointment. In a lot of ways, the team did better than some expected, overcoming the retirement of tackle Willie Roaf and the absence of running back Priest Holmes and the injury to Green and the new coaching philosophy to slide into the playoffs.

In other ways, it’s going to take some time to get over the beating in Indianapolis.

“That’s all you got now, is time,” guard Brian Waters said. “It’s not like you have to prepare for next week or anything like that. You just have to get back to your family and friends and all those people, and those are the people who are going to love you regardless.”

Waters talked about how the experience in Indianapolis could only help the team, how each player now had a better idea of what it takes to win a playoff game.

He vowed to use the offseason to improve himself and said he expects his teammates to do the same.

The problem is he can’t exactly be sure who his teammates will be anymore. One of the guys in limbo, Gonzalez, wasn’t even planning on watching Sunday’s playoff games.